After lunch at Aunt Ut Hue’s house, I stretched out on the wooden daybed and let the breeze drift over my skin.
The house was open on all sides. Doors and windows stood wide, allowing the wind to come and go as it pleased, running playful fingers across my face until sleep carried me away.
I don’t know how long I slept.
A black drongo screeching from the chinaberry tree in the yard finally woke me.
The house was empty.
Aunt Ut Hue had probably gone back to the rice fields.
Her daughter Loan, ten years old, was nowhere to be seen either. I guessed she was out in the vegetable garden chasing dragonflies.
I wandered to the back of the house and splashed some water on my face.
On my way back inside, I noticed Loan standing beneath a guava tree, fiddling with a tin can.
Curious, I crept closer.
Only then did I realize she was playing telephone.
The can had both ends removed. One side was covered with paper, and a string ran through the center. The string stretched all the way to another can on the opposite side of the fence.
When pulled tight, it carried sound.
As I tiptoed nearer, Loan was chatting with Turtle through the homemade telephone.
She spoke excitedly into the can, apparently asking about schoolwork. Then she pressed it to her ear to listen to Turtle’s reply.
I assumed she was so absorbed in the conversation that she hadn’t noticed me standing directly behind her.
I was wrong.
Suddenly she shouted into the can.
“What did you say? There’s a thief standing behind me?”
I nearly jumped out of my skin.
Before I could react, she continued at full volume.
“So the goose thought he was a thief, but Brother Dong isn’t actually a thief?”
That was enough.
I reached over and flicked her lightly on the head.
“That’s enough, you little troublemaker.”
Then I snatched the can from her hand.
“Give me that.”
I pressed it to my mouth.
“What have you been saying about me, Turtle?”
I glanced toward Turtle’s house.
She was standing behind the fence, trying unsuccessfully to hide a smile.
When she heard my question, she hurriedly answered through the can.
“Loan said that, not me.”
“I only told her you were standing behind her.”
“Then how does she know about the whole ‘thief’ thing?”
“I told her.”
Turtle sounded perfectly innocent.
“I told her while you were still inside the house.”
So it had been Loan teasing me after all.
I turned around, fully intending to flick her forehead again, but she had already vanished.
Remembering their conversation about school earlier, I hesitated before asking,
“You and Loan are in the same class?”
“Yes.”
I frowned.
“But Thuc told me you’re his age.”
“Yes.”
Turtle nodded.
“I’m fourteen.”
Fourteen-year-olds were supposed to be in ninth grade, like Thuc.
Turtle was still in fifth grade at the village school.
I almost asked why.
Her grandfather had been a teacher, after all.
But in the end, I kept the question to myself.
There are hundreds of reasons why someone might fall behind in school.
Every reason carries its own sadness.
It felt cruel to make someone revisit theirs.
Perhaps Turtle sensed the question hidden inside my silence.
She answered it anyway.
“When I was seven, I got sick.”
Her voice remained calm.
“Very sick.”
“I became so thin you could see my bones.”
“All my hair fell out.”
She paused.
“Everyone thought I was going to die.”
I looked at her without saying a word.
“I had to stop going to school for four years.”
~~~•••~~~
Missing four years of school is a terrible thing for a child.
A teenager who should have been in ninth grade, sitting among ten-year-olds in a village elementary classroom, would usually become the target of endless teasing.
Yet Turtle never seemed burdened by it.
The more time I spent with her, the more I realized she felt no embarrassment whatsoever about being taller and older than her classmates while carrying her notebooks to the village primary school every morning.
In fact, she seemed almost proud of the years she had spent recovering.
She told me that after four years of swallowing medicine, she had become an expert on medicinal plants.
During those years, apart from her grandparents, she had only one regular friend: the old herbal doctor who treated her.
The village children visited from time to time, but children are children.
They would sit and talk with her for a while before growing restless and running off to catch crickets, fly kites, or play in the fields, leaving her alone on the cold wooden daybed to watch the evening sun ripen red beyond the distant mountains.
“Weren’t you lonely?” I asked.
“No.”
Turtle shook her head.
“I had lots of friends.”
When she saw my skeptical expression, her eyes brightened.
“I’ll tell you about them.”
“Long Neck. Long Tail. Red Bottom…”
For a moment I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.
Only after she explained did I understand.
Long Neck was the goose that wandered around the water-spinach pond.
Long Tail was a squirrel that raced up and down the coconut tree behind the house.
Red Bottom was a red-whiskered bulbul that had recently built a nest in the bamboo grove near her gate.
And those were only the beginning.
Turtle continued listing names.
Apparently she had an entire social circle living in the forest.
Among them was a monkey that occasionally came to visit.
My head was spinning.
I quickly interrupted before the introductions could continue.
“Okay, okay. I get it.”
I clicked my tongue.
“You really do have a lot of friends.”
Turtle looked up at me.
“Do you want to meet them?”
“Of course.”
I answered boldly.
Then I remembered the goose that had nearly bitten my leg that morning.
My confidence immediately collapsed.
“Well… maybe… maybe I should think about it first.”
Turtle slapped my arm and burst out laughing.
“Don’t worry.”
“Long Neck won’t chase you anymore.”
“I already talked to him.”
The comment turned my face as red as a radish left out in the sun.
Once again, Turtle had managed to land a direct hit without even realizing it.
Ironically, she couldn’t ride a bicycle.
“Why don’t you learn?” I asked.
“You were sick for four years,” I added before she could answer.
“Oh.”
Right.
I scratched my head awkwardly.
To hide my embarrassment, I looked up at the butterfly bush shimmering beneath the afternoon sunlight.
“If you ever need to go somewhere far away,” I said casually, “just tell me. I’ll take you on my bike.”
“I never go very far.”
She shrugged.
“I mostly stay around the village.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Then what about the day you walked all the way to Ke Xuyen Market collecting bottle caps?”
“That was different.”
She smiled.
“I only go there once in a while.”
I brushed a hand through the yellow allamanda vines growing beside the well.
“Have you saved up a lot of bottle caps?”
Turtle blinked.
Only then did I notice how long her eyelashes were.
“I’m collecting them for Loan.”
“For Loan?”
My eyes widened.
She nodded as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
“She’s younger than the others.”
“She can’t compete with them when they’re collecting caps.”
“So I gather some and bring them back for her.”
Her tone remained completely matter-of-fact.
To Turtle, helping someone smaller than herself required no explanation.
Yet I knew how valuable bottle caps had become to the children.
Thuc could buy peanut candy with them.
That hardly seemed ordinary to me.
Later, I would learn that Turtle did this all the time.
Whenever one of the younger children in her class was bullied by older kids, she stepped in.
She protected them.
Somehow she earned a reputation as a stubborn girl, the kind who wasn’t afraid to fight if she had to.
But I wouldn’t hear those stories until much later, when Thuc told me.
At that moment, sitting together on the edge of the well beneath the swaying shade of the allamanda vines, I saw none of that.
To me, Turtle was simply a gentle girl.
And I could not deny the truth growing quietly inside my heart.
The more time I spent with her,
the more I liked her.
~~~•••~~~
That afternoon, Turtle invited me to go exploring.
“The lotus pond?” I asked, trying to sound knowledgeable.
“No.”
She shook her head.
“I only like going to the lotus pond at noon.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Who goes picking lotus flowers under the blazing midday sun?”
Turtle giggled.
“I don’t pick the flowers.”
“What, then?”
“I pick the leaves.”
She spread her hands as if the answer were obvious.
“I hold a lotus leaf over my head and walk home. It feels like carrying an umbrella.”
Her smile widened.
“I love it.”
I stared at her.
The idea seemed wonderfully strange.
By the time she reached the pond, her hair would probably be baked golden by the sun, yet she still thought it was worth the trip.
What a peculiar girl.
That day, just as she had promised, we did not go to the lotus pond.
Instead, we followed a narrow trail leading into the forest.
Above us, flocks of birds hurried toward a horizon turning the color of egg yolks.
I was still wondering what could possibly be so interesting in the woods when Turtle suddenly stopped.
“What is it?”
“Why aren’t we going?”
She tilted her head slightly.
“Do you hear that?”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“An airplane.”
A few moments later, I finally caught it.
A distant humming.
Looking up, I spotted a faint white streak against the blue sky.
At first it looked like a tiny dot.
Then the line grew longer.
And longer.
As though someone were drawing across the sky with a giant piece of white chalk.
The trail stretched so far that Turtle and I had to turn our heads from east to west until our necks nearly ached.
The hum became a whistle as the airplane passed overhead.
Then the whistle faded back into a hum.
Then silence.
Truthfully, I could barely see the airplane itself.
It was far too high.
Nothing more than a black speck.
But I knew it was there.
The speck reminded me of Teacher Dien’s finger when he stood at the blackboard.
Wherever his finger moved, a trail of chalk followed.
Turtle continued staring upward.
The white streak was already breaking apart under the wind, scattering across the sky like goose feathers.
The expression on her face made something stir inside me.
I suddenly remembered my own childhood.
Back then, I had been exactly like Turtle.
Like Thuc.
Like every village child.
A passing airplane trailing white smoke across the sky could fill me with wonder.
So could a train whistle echoing across the fields.
Now those simple joys were gone.
I had grown up.
Somewhere along the way, I had lost that innocent amazement that shines so naturally from an uncomplicated heart.
“Another airplane!” I suddenly exclaimed.
To my own surprise, I sounded genuinely excited.
The distant rumbling had returned.
“Maybe the first one turned around—”
“That’s thunder.”
Turtle laughed.
She didn’t even bother looking up.
“It’s going to rain.”
I glanced uneasily toward the forest.
The hills ahead were carved with narrow green valleys.
Vines tangled around their slopes.
Trees I couldn’t name stretched their branches toward the darkening sky like giant arms.
The clouds above had turned the color of wet mud.
Heavy.
Gray.
Slowly sinking lower and lower.
“Should we keep going?”
I asked nervously.
What I really wanted was for Turtle to say,
Let’s go home.
As if she had read my thoughts—as she somehow always seemed to do—Turtle clicked her tongue.
“We can’t keep going.”
I brightened.
Then she added,
“But we can’t make it home in time either.”
Right on cue, the first raindrops brushed against my arms.
I looked around frantically.
“Then where do we go?”
Without answering, Turtle grabbed my hand.
Not like a friend.
More like an adult leading a lost child.
She pulled me toward a thicket of wild hackberry bushes dotted with tiny yellow flowers.
When we reached it, she bent down and pushed aside the tangled branches.
“Come in here.”
I blinked.
Hidden inside was a small shelter.
A nest.
A secret room woven from leaves and branches.
“My house,” Turtle announced proudly.
Before I could ask what she meant, she shoved me forward and scrambled in after me.
The moment we disappeared inside, the rain came crashing down.
Wind howled through the trees.
Huge drops rattled against the branches above us so violently that it sounded as though a storm were tearing through the forest.
Yet somehow we remained dry.
The interlocking branches overhead formed a roof so dense and skillfully woven that barely a drop reached us.
Only Turtle’s bare feet got wet.
At some point she had spread a layer of dried leaves beneath them.
Occasionally I managed to soak the seat of my pants whenever I forgot and tried to sit down.
Curled up beside Turtle, I watched the curtain of rain through gaps in the leaves.
I listened to the steady drumming overhead.
I felt the cool damp air settling onto my skin.
I breathed in the rich scent of wet earth rising endlessly from the ground.
All of it—the sound, the smell, the touch—seemed to awaken every one of my senses.
For a moment, I felt as though I were living two or three lives at once.
And the feeling was wonderful.
~~~•••~~~
“How long have you been building this place?” I I asked Turtle
“Quite a while.”
She answered, then added with a hint of pride,
“I have several little houses like this scattered from here all the way into the forest.”
“You’re really prepared.” I nodded approvingly. “You’ve got shelters everywhere. Whenever you need one, you’ve got a place to rest.”
We talked over the sound of rain.
But because we were sitting side by side inside the leafy nest, our voices came through clearly, as if they were being struck from a bell.
“Do you go into the forest often?”
“Yes. But only sometimes in the afternoons like this. I like going on Sunday mornings better.”
I laughed.
“So on Sunday mornings you can roam around the forest all day, huh?”
At that moment, I still didn’t understand why Turtle liked the forest so much.
I had known this forest since I was a child, but I had never once dared to step inside.
Whenever villagers went in to gather firewood, they wrapped their legs in gaiters, wore boots, and rubbed anti-snake medicine on their bodies.
During the rainy season, they even crushed garlic and smeared it over their hands, legs, and necks to keep leeches away, the pungent smell following them everywhere.
But Turtle was nothing like that.
She led me into the forest as casually as if she were taking me to pick flowers in a field, wearing light, carefree clothes.
And then, just as I turned toward her to ask why she kept coming into the forest, my lips accidentally brushed her cheek.
I jolted.
The question stuck in my throat.
My face burned.
I quickly looked away and stammered,
“The rain… it’s letting up…”
My words and my actions didn’t match at all.
It was like someone had fitted the handle of a hammer onto the blade of an axe.
But Turtle didn’t seem to notice.
She didn’t react to the touch.
And she didn’t seem to sense my awkwardness either.
She simply said,
“Wait a little longer. Once it stops completely, we’ll go home.”
From that moment on, I never looked at her again.
I sat there, curled up on my own knees, quietly bewildered by my own embarrassment.
Something so trivial—she probably thought my lips were nothing more than a leaf brushing against her face in passing.
Something so insignificant she might not have even noticed it.
And yet I found myself blushing like a fool.
I pulled at a strand of hair.
Then another.
Then another.
By the time I reached the tenth strand, I finally understood.
The reason I felt like this was simple.
I had grown up.
I was eighteen now.
And Turtle was only fourteen.
At eighteen, I already knew what love was.
I already understood what a kiss meant—even though I had never been in love and had never kissed anyone.
There was Bich Lan, the daughter of one of my mother’s friends.
Whenever she came over, she would terrify me.
She always found a way to sit too close.
And whenever no one was watching, she would openly demand that I kiss her.
She was one year older than me, but a hundred times bolder.
Her face was dotted with freckles, yet she was still pretty, with playful eyes and a bright smile like a blooming flower.
And maybe because she knew that, she smiled all the time.
Perhaps I might have liked her if she hadn’t frightened me so much.
Even though my family had moved to Saigon ten years ago, I still couldn’t shake off my rural upbringing.
I was always shy around girls.
To me, touching a girl’s body felt improper—even though in my private dreams, I often did the opposite.
Of course, not every city girl was like Bich Lan.
My classmates were nothing like her.
None of them ever “attacked” me so directly.
Partly because none of them liked me at all.
Bich Lan was different.
The very first time she met me, she had said,
“Oh my, you’re so cute!”
Right in front of both our mothers.
Completely unashamed.
The two women just laughed, while my face turned as red as if it had been baked in an oven.
To this day, I still haven’t kissed Bich Lan—not even once—despite all her provocations.
After saying things like “I like you already” and “I think I really love you,” she would grow more and more frustrated with my stubborn silence.
Eventually she called me a country bumpkin.
And even then, she would still sit beside me whenever she got the chance, continuing her relentless teasing.
When that failed, she asked if I was gay, since I refused to kiss her—the way all her previous boyfriends apparently did.
At times like that, I could only smile awkwardly and look out at the rain, muttering,
“The rain… it’s letting up…”
Now I realized I had just repeated the exact same sentence.
The only difference was that this time, I was sitting beside Turtle, inside a wild thicket in the middle of a rain-soaked field—
Flustered not because I was refusing a kiss…
But because I had almost, accidentally, brushed into one.
